Sardonicast - Sardonicast #63: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation.

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

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Three, two, one. Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich. Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich. It's kind of a tongue twister. Markovitch, Malcovich. We say it really fast. I wasn't expecting it to be that bad. Hey, everybody, this is a Sardatka.

I'm Adam from your movie sucks. If you couldn't speak Malcovich, that's what I was saying. I was ready to do that for like 30 minutes I was ready I didn't want to go on so long I was yeah who else is here I'm Ralph from Ralph the movie maker

whatever my match my chee and I have something noted down that I really wanted to bring up it's nothing to do with movies and it's only a little thing but I just want to know pure curiosity

do you guys have fairy liquid in your countries what the fuck is that yes I want to guess what fairy liquid is. What do you think fairy liquid is? It's a common item you can buy in a supermarket in the UK. Is it a household cleaner?

Close, yeah, yeah. It's a cleaning product. Okay. Okay, that's interesting. Is it like, so close as in, it's not household? Is it for your vehicle? No, it's like washing up liquid. So just soap?

Not soap, it's like a green liquid that you put in, the sink when you want to do the dishes. So, fairy liquid. It's like a dish soap. You don't call it dish soap. Over here in La La La Lam, we call it fairy liquid. That's interesting. Yeah, very liquid.

Yeah, it's just dish soap. You clean the dishes with it, it's dish soap. I don't, why did you say that? You're weird. So, like, how did you come to that conclusion of just like, you were just doing the dishes one day and you're like, this is a weird name. I wonder if it's only in the UK. Is that what happened?

No, because it's been on my mind ever since doing this podcast, just the disparity between the different uses of English, where it's mostly the UK that seems to just have our own completely warped view of the English language. That's just curious what you guys thought it would be. Debateably Australia, too. You have a whole list of them. It's great. Yeah. No, I've got that as well because I have family in Australia, so I just have the most messed up. Just vocabulary. You're unique. I was watching that shitty Artemis Fall movie, and I'm not going to talk about it much.

I'll just record a quickie next week. There's constant talk of fairies, but because they all have such thick Irish accents, it sounds like they're saying furries the entire time, and it was really... And they're constantly saying it. They're like, humans and fairies will never get along. I'm going to watch that tonight. I'm very excited. So not worth it.

Pull up Disney Plus. It's only an hour and a half, I guess. It's so good. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. They cut it down into a stumped it out there. That's why it wasn't as bad as a wrinkle in time for me.

That was almost two hours. That was so boring. Oh, forget that. There's a game that came out. And people have been talking about it. There is. It's a sequel. It's not dividing anyone either.

Everyone's. agreement. Everyone's pretty, yeah, unanimous and their hatred of, well, I don't know, I'm not a fan of like the reactionary, like, internet culture where they just dogpile on something, give it one-star ratings on Metacritic or whatever. Because it's just, we were talking about that before. Yeah, all the nuances gone. And there's, there's good aspects to this game that, like, keep it from being ride-to-hell retribution or something like that. Like, it's really polished and, like, the graphics are good. But on a story level, I think it's... It's like, it's not smart what they did.

Yeah, I guess before we go any further, this is not going to be a spoiler discussion right now. No. We will likely do a spoiler discussion next week. I've only played, like, the first four or five hours. So I can't really add much to the discussion. I can say a couple things for sure. None of us have finished it. So.

I think I'm the furthest. I'm way past the halfway point now, I think. So I kind of know all the major beats of the story at this point. And I'm kind of with you, Ralph, it is, I'm not fully sold on it being hopeless. Because I do, I try to empathize with the creators as much as I can to just see what they're trying to achieve. And I do see what they're attempting. But I really think it's incredibly clumsy so far. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely, without spoiling anything, there's things that happen in the story that probably, you know, if it were. to happen in this game it should have happened later sort of thing like I there there were things that happened that I did not really get an emotional impact out of just because it kind of felt like thrown in there and it was just like okay well it's the wrong emotion that's the problem I have with it it doesn't you don't feel the way I think they intend you to feel yeah I'm interested to see how we feel two weeks from now yeah exactly it might be a completely different conversation yeah yeah I've seen conflicting reports some people are thrilled by the ending and think it all comes together

and the opposite is true as well. So, we'll see. There's some funny memes. That's for sure. Lots of funny memes. From scenes that I haven't even gotten to yet, but whatever. They're still funny. So, okay, we all pretty much agree that the story is not amazing, even so far.

Apparently the second half of the game is supposed to be worse, but what do you think of the, like, gameplay and mechanics and, like, art direction, I guess. in terms of visuals. The art direction is incredible, I think. Just the look of the game is ridiculous. The amount of detail is unparalleled pretty much. The lighting and the animations. Yeah. They really try to capture it like it's a movie, like you're watching a film.

And like the actors' performances and the nuances where you feel like you're watching real people. It's really the closest I've seen to like something that real. Yeah. I appreciate that aspect of. I'm I'm like half and half on this It's also goofies sometimes So they they 100% like the facial animation is like amazing

I think that that is one thing that they did really really well Like there's a lot of detail in facial expressions and performances And that carries through really well I love the lighting And at the same time though There's there's some clunkiness there. It does feel

unfinished for me in certain ways. Like at the beginning of the game comparing that to the first last of us game, I remember in the first one, like you could walk past different people in here like different conversations. There were

things going on like the officers or whatever like arresting people or whatever was happening. But it felt like an alive universe and you could like walk up to a certain part of it that wasn't necessarily a scripted thing that you're supposed to look at

and feel a part of the universe whereas like this there was so much less interactivity and the conversation volume like there was like a backing track of conversations but nobody was really talking that I walked past they were all kind of just like

staring at each other and like making gestures every once in a while like a really old game would do and it felt unfinished in that way and there was a lot less to interact with. Like even in the opening scene of The Last of Us Part 1, like there's so many things in the room just when you start as the little girl

that you can just click on and see. This game, there just wasn't much of it. Like, everything that was happening was for the sake of what you were supposed to do in a linear sense, at least for the first part of the game that I played. Yeah, it does open up a bit as you go on. Yeah. But I know what you mean.

Because they were going to postpone the game and then they kind of did, but not really. They were like, yeah, postponed indefinitely, and then the leaks came out, and then they were like, oh, we're finishing it up right now. It's gone gold. Yeah. And then they just released it.

And so I wonder if these things that I'm criticizing, I wonder if those things would just be polished if they had more time to work on it and didn't panic, I guess. Maybe. I think it is a really polished game for the most part when you're interacting with it. I mean, I haven't come across any of the, glitches or anything it runs very smoothly the animations are good the way everything kind of joins together is good it's just i think the the pacing is kind of all over the place especially compared to the

first game and it's kind of a it's a problem i've had with naughty dog in the past as i don't they're kind of all over the place in terms of the way they truncate their games but it's a story game you know and if if you're not connecting with the story it's supposedly about 25 hours long you know So if you're 20 hours in and you're not invested in anything, as good and as fun and interactive as some of the gameplay loops can be, it can be a slog sometimes. Like, I'm at a point now where I'm really struggling to find the motivation to go back and finish it.

Oh, that's sad. Yeah, you'll know what I mean when you get there. I'm just like, there's so many games where it wouldn't even fucking matter, really, because the gameplay is all there is to the game and the story is just an afterthought. But with Nottie Dog games, when they're attempting to be so cinematic, and the story is essentially the forefront, and the gameplay mechanics are just, you know, tools to tell the story through even to a certain degree, debatably. Like the story, if you don't get that right, then you're affecting the core experience of the game, really. Yeah, exactly.

I feel like if the story was just better, then I don't really think I'd have many complaints about the gameplay or the gameplay loops and upgrades and everything like that. because it is fairly similar to the first game, but just kind of improved and polished in every way for the most part. You're saying the gameplay was improved or just graphically? Because, like, I haven't played very far into it yet, but... The gameplay is not a huge jump or revolutionary

by any means, however... Yeah, it seems the same. I think if the plot was better and they'd made different choices, the gameplay would not be what people would fixate on. Yeah. It's not really what part of the conversation at the moment anyway.

It's all about the story. I think the technical improvement just made like the combat better, like all the animations and you can prone now. So there's like the stealth mechanics are a little bit better. There's more upgrade stuff. So I do think on a gameplay level in that way, it's better than the first one. But the story is like it's so much better in the first one that it's not even worth playing this because I would rather experience that. But the combat is satisfying in this. I found it to be.

I have no issues with that. And so yeah. Some of the encounters and the environments are like really striking. I won't spoil any of them, but there are some really cool encounters that you do go through, which kind of picked it up every now and again for me. Yeah, I'm excited to keep playing through it. Even, you know, before I was released, I knew that I would enjoy it even if it's bad, because I like bad things.

So. Right. One thing I'm kind of disappointed by is the music, which I'm really shocked by. It doesn't feel as impactful. It seems like B-Side. There's no punch to it. Yeah, it almost seems like it's been

relegated to the background or something. I think it's also composition, too. I don't even think it's just like mixing. It's just more subtle. There are no memorable kind of musical moments. Like, there's so many in the first game. It's so punchy. Yeah, I wonder what happened.

Same composer. Love the guy. Yeah, but... Yeah, same. No idea what happened there. Maybe he was rush. Or maybe he was paid a lot less or something And was like okay, well you're just gonna get a lot

Less quality for what you're paying me for I think they paid them less This is a this is a triple a fucking game I mean they didn't pay the fucking girl that they ripped that song cover off of Really? Yeah Oh yeah I mean they might have now after they got criticism for it They're there I cover this on my YMS highlights channel

They took a song cover of an 80s pop song that had like this really like kind of upbeat catchy like the day is going to i don't remember basically this cover song from 2005 uh lottie kessner her name is she transformed it into something completely new and original and she didn't just make it like this oh yeah now it's a melancholic guitar song she specifically added unique melodies to the song that were then replicated in the trailer for the last of us part two and it is that unique melody that made me think like, okay, they definitely ripped this off because it's not just like, oh, yeah, coincidence.

It's not just logical progressions based off of previously existing common ideas, like Kimba shit that I talked about. There's unique parts of it that were replicated there. And about like, I don't know, less than a week after I posted that video, I was completely vindicated because they acknowledged it on Twitter. They're like, due to an oversight, we didn't credit Lottie Kessner. And she was like, she didn't even know about it. So obviously she didn't get paid.

Maybe she did now. So I don't know. Apparently, I don't know if this was confirmed or not, but apparently they were really crunching the, like, employees and animators and, you know, general staff anyway. So, like, companies love to cut costs. They love to do that. You know, AMC and the Walking Dead?

Like, that whole fucking story? Like, we can't just pretend because they have a lot of money that they're not going to try to cut costs. Yeah, because they want to make more. Yeah. So you could, I think it's reasonable. to acknowledge the possibility that Gustavo Santo Alala got paid less or something. Like, I don't know.

I don't think that's out of the question is all I'm saying. I don't have proof, but I often get vindicated on these types of assumptions. You never know. Yeah, is that all we have to say about it so far? We can have a spoiler discussion next week. For now. I'm very interested in that. We should all have beaten it, I guess.

I'll have two Sundays before the next episode. Yeah, yeah. All right. So, there was a film recommendation, two of them, a double feature. Spike Jones directed and Charlie Kaufman written features. And this is a spoiler discussion for both of them. If you don't want to be spoiled for these movies that we're going to talk about one at a time, just go watch them and come back.

They're great. First one, being John Malkovich. And I guess you should watch it in this order anyway. I forgot to mention that last time, but it seems like people on the subreddit. took care of that for me. Being John Malkovich, it is, what, 99, if I remember correctly? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Basically, it is a really weird movie, very unique and original. It's about a puppeteer who loves to kind of live through other bodies in a metaphorical way through his puppetry. and he gets a new job because puppeteering doesn't pay the bills and he's kind of a douche and it's at this very strange building where the entire floor is half the size of what it should be

and everybody has to like crouch there the seventh and a half floor and while he's there he discovers a hidden tiny door behind a filing cabinet that leads to a portal inside of John Malcovic's head, and anybody who goes into the portal is trapped inside his head for a good 10, 15 minutes, and then thrown out onto the highway.

And then, yeah, the story goes from there. They tried to capitalize off of it, him and Catherine Keener's character. They decide to make some money off of it and sell tickets into John Malkovich's head. And the story goes really fucking crazy, and it just keeps going, and it's really wacky and hilarious and I love it. So what do you guys think? I rated both of these movies five stars, but I erased those ratings because I wanted to watch this like, you know, with a fresh eyes, fresh critical lens, clean slate. And I don't like this one as much as an adaptation.

Interesting. But this one's great. I'm the same. Okay, cool. I think this one's really funny. And it's like a building block to adaptation. But this movie is hilarious. It's also just a fascinating think piece on its own.

just about the human condition and you just start imagining what it's like to leave your head and what it would do to your psyche to yeah because that's like part of the story is what happens to Cameron Diaz's character which I thought was one of the most ingenious

parts of the movie to me but she figures out she's trans which is something that you could imagine in this like universe would be something that would happen to a lot of people if you could just jump into other people's bodies and experience what it's like that that would be

an inevitable result because it's not something we can even begin to imagine because obviously this technology doesn't exist. So the kind of absurdist use of all these storytelling elements is so clever in the way they use, like they just explore it through these characters who will have different goals. Yeah. And they're all kind of, some of them are more selfish than others. A lot of selfish characters actually. It's very human in that way that it's very, it's like, yeah, of course they use it to make money. Of course they use it to kind of like fuck each other and see what it's like to connect in different ways. And it's almost black mirrory in that sense.

It's kind of disturbing in a way. I found it quite disturbing to think about, especially the aspect where John Malkovich himself, who is just playing himself, he kind of loses control of his own body. Yeah. As John Cusack gradually figures out that he can stay for longer and longer and he eventually just stays in him for months on end.

That is terrifying to me, being controlled by someone else. Yeah. I love that idea. Do you think this is going to happen one day? We're going to have this technology? Someone's going to like possess your body. You could replicate it, but I don't think it could happen literally. I think you could provide someone with more or less the same experience,

but I don't know. The human consciousness is a physical property. What's the closest we got, like VR chat, I guess? Yeah, exactly. It's just a fascinating thing to think about. Yeah, it's very... Deconstructing, like, fame, just insecurity. Like you want to be John Malcovich because you just want to be someone else.

Oh, John Malcovic is great from the outside. But, you know, he's got his own things going on. And his life's fucked up too. So it's kind of a think piece on that also. And there's almost the like culty element of the reveal of these like eternal beings that have been living through people once they're ripe. And they kind of almost farm people in a horrific way. Yeah, it's pretty morbid.

There's a lot of aspects to this that are just kind of like disturbing, especially the ending of the film I find kind of terrifying. It is. It's like existential horror in a way in many aspects to this script. I love how imaginative it is. It's crazy. I guess I should talk about how he wrote this script in like 94 or something. And it was always John Malkovich. He never wanted anybody else.

and it got passed around he tried to get somebody to pick it up and then eventually it made its way to fuck who's the director I always blank on it Francis Ford Coppola I think was that him? Yeah yeah yeah you're right

I think it was him yeah and Spike Jones was his son-in-law at the time and so Francis Ford Coppola gave it to Spike Jones and this became his directorial debut which is an insane first feature like he did music videos before this

but like what a what a crazy first feature and also just that it's it's crazy that it was even made really because John Malkovich didn't really want to do it and every producer talking uh with Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jones when they were trying to pitch this to them they were like why can't it be Tom Cruise every single one of even John Malkovich said why can't it be Tom Cruise but it just wouldn't work as well it really wouldn't and it wouldn't what's funny is like one of the justifications for why he wouldn't use anyone else. It's like, yeah, I thought about it. It just wasn't as fun imagining anyone else. Plus, saying Malkovich over and over is great, but you can't, other people's last names,

it doesn't sound as good. Just for that scene alone, it seemed to be like kind of an important factor. Yeah, Malkovich has that mystery to him. Yeah. His voice and everything, he's like spoken, but he can also lose it. He's just a really interesting actor and performer, and I really, yeah, I can't see, Cruz in the same role. It'd be ridiculous. Because that's what they do, like, interesting about it. The way they're juggling all these different, incredibly wacky concepts and somehow managed to keep it believable in a strange way.

I just imagine Tom Cruise going to Scientology meetings and they possess his body during one of those. That's what I would be. Like, that's why the movie wouldn't work. You would just have to make up this whole life. I mean, but in a way they kind of did that with John Melkovich, too. Melkovich said that he He didn't see this role as any different from any other role

Like he was playing a character still And it's clearly a character There was a really funny quote Like after he I think this was after he had already agreed to the project Perhaps even after they were already done filming But he was asked about it and he was like Either the movie is going to flop

And my name is going to be attached to this Not just being a part of it but in the title Or it's going to be a successful a success and I'm forever going to be associated with this character. And he was just like, the fact that he actually wound up doing it and was such a fucking sport about it, especially just the way that parts of it were written. Like, some of them are almost kind of like borderline demeaning to his character. But he's such a champ in terms of like him just being okay with it and actually going along with it.

It's great. And it's what makes the movie so unique too. It's like you can't imagine a lot of actors that would. do that. You can't imagine a lot of writers that would do something like this and you can't imagine a lot of directors picking this up or it coming together in any way and people actually

agreeing to make this movie. Like that's part of what's so crazy about it. Well yeah. Imagine trying to get the money for it. Imagine trying to get funding for an idea this wacky. I won't mention it now but adaptation has like similar a lot of a Kaufman projects

actually. I'm amazed they ever get made. That's why he can't make now. It's because nobody wants to make these kinds of things anymore. And he needs to get celebrities too to be in these. Yeah. Like the celebrities are what sold it, I think. And maybe now it's just,

it's not as much with that. You need the best of the best kind of actors to sell stories like this. And they were lucky enough. If it was a fake actor, the movie wouldn't be as funny. I'm trying to think of like, oh, the fanatic. The fanatic has a fake actor in it called something Dunbar. Oh, yeah. Hunter Dunbar.

better if it was a real actor. Yeah. But John Travolta should have played that part in the movie. I don't consider John Cusack to be the best of the best, but he works really well in this movie. In fact, I think I don't like him in any other movie. I think this might be the only movie I actually like him in. I mean, I haven't seen every movie he's ever been in, but feel free to challenge my...

2012? Exactly, right? I remember liking him in high fidelity, but it's been a long time since I've seen it. Oh, yeah. That's a classic that I haven't seen. I don't think I've ever seen him in another movie, aside from 2012. He was in a lot of straight to Netflix movies recently. Like, he's kind of fell off. You never saw 1408?

No. I didn't see that. It's not good. No. I can imagine. But he's good in this. Yeah, he was good in this. Not the best, but I enjoyed Cameron Diaz in it.

Yeah. And they made her, like, unrecognizable too which is great I didn't know yeah I didn't recognize her at first I forgot she was in the movie they did such a dramatic change to her yeah I thought she did a really good job actually I forgot it was John Cusack too like I mean I knew as soon as I started the movie again but yeah my roommate watching it with me didn't recognize him until like 20 minutes through because like everybody is like actually transformed into a real character except John Malkovich who knows I don't I have

I don't know what he's like in real life, but he didn't seem like so far off of what I would imagine. And then I think Catherine Keener got an Oscar nom for this movie. Or did she win? I don't remember. But she got some sort of Oscar thing for this. She did a great job, too. Yeah, it was nominated for three Academy Awards. Best director, best writing, best actress for Keener.

Imagine making your directorial debut and you get a best director nom. What the fuck? That's what you get for Noah and Francis Ford Coppola. He knows so many people in Hollywood, Ford Coppola. He's like related to a bunch of Nicholas Cage. It's like, I don't know, nephew or something. Of course, but yeah, the Coppola family name and film has gone on for so long, even before him, I think, like back in Italy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember reading about that when we did the goal. of father trilogy. Dad. Yeah, and his daughters are directing movies. I mean, it's cool. It's cool. But that's like how Spike Jones got all these great people.

Yeah. I mean, I love Spike. Of course. Like, he was terrific. He was perfect for this job. Like, he did a great job. It is just weird because I was like reading up more about this movie and just like my previous worldview of Spike Jones was like, oh yeah, he made a bunch of music videos and like, proved his name in the industry and that's how he kind of got started but it's like oh no it's you

you know people like that's so much of it that's so much of the entertainment business it's just knowing people or like social climbing it's like kind of sad yeah at the same time i love him also propel them yeah of course level yeah where people clearly see that he's making great movies and so many different movies too like her is great but it's so different from this stylistically yeah it's presented but the goofy kind of tone is still there I guess yeah I think this is um I would I would out of all the Charlie Kaufman written films that I've seen this is probably the funniest for me mm-hmm I don't know if you agree so yeah I think even adaptation has like less of a emphasis on the humor I love Nicholas Cage though so that gets me yeah he was very funny

even if he's not trying to be funny it's kind of funny yeah I guess they just for the absurd nature of it to work that there had to be comedic beats in there and it does work in that regards. It has to not take itself seriously. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's why I prefer adaptation over being John Malkovich because as much as I enjoy

exploring this premise, I don't really connect with it emotionally too much beyond, you know, some of the humor and just the overall cleverness of it where it as I do in adaptation. Yeah, I agree with that. I prefer this film. Always have.

Okay. And, you know, rewatching, I know a lot of people love adaptation more. Rewatching this, I was expecting to perhaps like skyrocket my perspective of adaptation and maybe even love it more than this. But, you know, I love both of them more having watched it recently. I appreciate both of them a lot more, but still being John Malkovich is still my favorite. And part of the reason for that is not saying that this isn't true for adaptation, but I think especially for this film,

I really, really love and appreciate movies that are written in ways where everything fits like part of a puzzle. And this is a film where watching it recently, because I hadn't seen it in a while, I was able to pick up on so much more of just how everything connected

and how everything was like purposeful, especially in terms of like the thematic element. because you got the main character who says that he wants to live his life through these other beings sort of thing, like the puppets that he has. He's able to express himself more in that way. And then once he's in John Malkovich's body and controlling him, we see that he's much more confident and that he's actually able to talk to Catherine Keener's character. He's actually able to talk to her and communicate with her in a way that's not like complete cringe.

like the first half of the movie where he's like the most awkward in cell type ever right yeah and then you get to the elements like I love that it's a puppeteer that winds up being able to control john malcovich like that makes sense because he's so used to manipulating other bodies already that that works logistically for this fantastical idea this this weird concept that they've created that fits. There's also, if you think about, I think her name's

Maxine, Catherine Keener's character. Yeah. If you think about her character and her motivations, she's figuratively

puppeteering other people. Like, everything is about controlling and puppeteering. She gets off on it. And we get that from her character before there's even

any element of like John Malkovich portal sort of thing. Like, she loves manipulating and controlling. like she when they meet in the bar and she's like oh you just have to admit it like you want to fuck my tits and then she finally gets him to admit it and she's like yeah not happening and she just

loves that she can control him that's all she wants and that plays into her motivation of like her loving the idea of being able to control more than one person simultaneously it's like oh two people looking at me and loving me through the same set of eyes and then she's like oh yeah well i can control John Cusack and he can control John Malkovich and I can control everything and so in a way she's her own kind of puppeteer and I just I think it's brilliant

and really thoughtful Wow I don't know what to say that that's a great point yeah very deep yeah everything fits like there's not a single thing that's wasted with his other films too he's a very thorough writer with like the detail of the world

and how everything works and how the characters, yeah, how every line actually means something and how, like, you can pick apart every line. And, yeah, everything means something. There's so many parts of the movie that you almost feel our throwaway lines. And we get asked this question quite a lot, or I do anyway. I know we've been asked this on the podcast before about, like, what is the difference between good and bad reincorporation? And to that, I would say that good reincorporation is something that you don't expect will come back later. And when it comes back, you're like, okay, that fits and that makes sense.

And so there's throwaway supposedly seemingly throwaway lines in this film that do come back later, like when John Cusack is saying, consciousness is a terrible curse. I think I feel I suffer. And the curse of being conscious is what he is actually subjected to at the end of the film. He's limited to just purely consciousness and nothing else. So it's like his character wasn't really appreciating not just him being consciousness, but him having, I guess, agency and control over what he was doing, whereas at the end of the film, he's limited to just purely consciousness and nothing else. There's the line about the chimpanzee character, and they were just saying,

like, oh yeah, he's got like post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever. And you think it's just like one of those tiny funny things, but then it actually plays into the plot and we get the chimp flashback. And it's like, oh, we're actually seeing what gave him PTSD. And it, you know, he winds up freeing Cameron Diaz's character. And so everything, it's just like, it's so tight. It's so neat. It's just nothing is wasted. And I love scripts like that.

I love movies like that. It's just, I appreciate it so much. It flies by too. I think the pacing and just the structure of. of the scenes is pretty impeccable in a lot of Kaufman movies. It is just, they know exactly when to start and end the scene. And it does just go by perfectly. I really like when a film, like, you check your watch, you know, like near the end,

and you haven't even noticed because it's just so, so well made and everything fits into place in the way it does. There's so much about this movie that is like, even from the directing, like, who knows if these elements were in the script or not, but there's, There's like a lot of nice subtleties, like the scene where they're out drinking at the carrot juice bar or whatever. And it doesn't really, we don't get a close up of this. We're just able to notice it.

But, you know, the scene starts and we see that Lester's finished his carrot juice and John Cusack's character has like not even touched it before he leaves, even though there's been like plenty of passage of time. I love little details like that. And it adds to the character. to the scene. It adds to the context. Yeah, I got more to say about you guys. There's definitely a lot of detail

about this movie that I've missed and would need to really watch to pick a pick a part because yeah, the cleverness does keep you going, but I'm just more inherently drawn to some of the other Kaufman stories because they are so metaphysical. I guess it just

depends on your life experiences which ones you resonate with more and what you kind of are drawn to. I just feel the same way. I enjoy the absurdism of this. I keep comparing it to adaptation too, because adaptation, a huge part of being,

like, John Malkovich is like in adaptation. Yeah, they're companion pieces, really. Yeah, they are companion pieces. They go together really well, too. I enjoy, like,

how that film, it's absurdist and how it's presented and the story's crazy, but there's nothing actually in the logic of the world of it that's that far. fetched. It's pretty much the world we live in. It's just how the story's told. That's ridiculous. I think that's like the brilliant part of adaptation that like I don't even his rest, the rest of

movies don't have it all. Like all of them have this fantastical element to it that you have to buy Synecrake, New York or Anomelisa that that one doesn't. It like it's the most human and like real world one I guess. And that's why that one's my favorite. Yeah, more grounded. Yeah. Well, actually, one detail in being John Malkovich that I really enjoyed were the lighter absurd elements that kind of slowly introduce you into the wackiness of the world, like the office with the, yeah, like the secretary who thinks she has a speech impediment, but is fine. There are lots of little, quirky little details that do ease you in. So when they get to the reveal of the little door behind the cabinet, it just works, it just fits. It was Lester that thought he had the speech impediment because she, the secretary, is just refusing to admit that she has a hearing problem. Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah.

It is really funny. They have their insecurities and they, like, can't see outside of themselves. I think that was part of it, too. And that fits thematically. Exactly. Yeah. It's like miscommunication as a theme. And that's also a big theme in Synecdoche.

And, like, rewatching these films, like, there's certainly. many Kaufman isms in these that, you know, obviously Synecdaqi I'm much more familiar with, but revisiting these, I'm like, okay, yeah. Like, we see a lot of the same ideas in a lot of Charlie Kaufman films and also Eternal Sunshine. Let's not forget that one. Oh, yeah. And it's done in a way where each idea is so fresh and each has a different purpose

and a different tone and a different goal that there's so many other writer-directors where they do have the same you know, Kaufmanism sort of like tropey things like Xavier Dolan like there's so many of his films that wind up doing a lot of the same thing but it's kind of hit or miss and some of those films for Dolan

you kind of just get sick of his whole stick you're like oh we're doing this again okay you're kissing a pretty boy and you're playing the character okay like there's this but with Kaufman it doesn't get old it's so fresh every time that even if there are

these ideas that very clearly connect with him as a writer that he's very passionate about and wants to communicate even if those still exist throughout his works they don't feel like oh yeah we're just doing the same fucking thing again so that's that's part of why he's a really great writer yeah he definitely has a special lens that he presents his stories through he's clearly very intelligent and very empathetic yeah very thoughtful very creative his ideas or so meta and he understands people yeah yeah clearly i mean to to to some degree yeah uh i mean we even get that through uh some of the writing of dialogue like just the awkwardness of how john cusack's character is played in the first third of the film there's there's scenes where

it's so delightfully awkward but not in a like weird kind of like not not in kind of like a stereotypical Judd Apatow comedy awkward kind of way, but in a Cohen Brothers-esque kind of way, where it's like, okay, I don't know how you wrote that. You must have just heard someone say it. Like, this must have been plucked from real life or something. Because no one would think of that, but it still seems natural the way it's said. Like when he was, the way he was phrasing his conversation when he was trying to talk to Maxime for one of the first times, like, oh, I work at this place. Where are you starting to work? Just like the way it was phrasing. phrased, just these weird little details where it's like, okay, you're delightfully awkward,

but who can write that, you know? It's like, it's a weird writing challenge in a way to, like, actually get yourself in the mind of a character who would talk like that or say something like that, where it's not, like, a typical thing that anyone would ever say, but it still works. It's super polished, yeah. You got more? I got more. You got more?

Good. Good. I got to scroll through my notes. You've clearly gone deeper than I have on this. movie because I connected more that adaptation so I'm more ready for that movie honestly I'll just go through my notes here I yeah at the beginning of the film

there's a detail that I really enjoyed of like him literally playing a tape recording of an audience cheering which is just a very succinct kind of like neat way of introducing his goals and motivations as a character which obviously comes back into play later like he wants to be famous for this this sort of thing

And that in of itself, like, not the most incredibly unique or creative idea, but it's just a nice little thing so that we don't have to be beaten over the head with it, I guess. It perfectly establishes it right away. And that's very important in terms of writing is getting the basics covered, which is why Artemis Fowl was such a shit movie is because there are things happening in that film that are just like, you know, scenes of exposition where they could be plucked out of any other movie, but they didn't come. cover the basics first so nobody gives a shit about anything that's happening. Well, you didn't cover the basics. You don't contextualize anything. You got to get, you got to get those out of the way in the first part of the movie so that people care about what's going on. Let's see what else I got here. Malkovich. That scene is awesome, by the way. Oh, yeah. The whole of the the different Malkovich's. It must have been a nightmare to coordinate. Because it's directed

and executed very well, that scene. Yeah. And Spike. Jones. He's good with those visual effects, but they're very seamless. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I, um, I really love the score. That's something we haven't mentioned. I think the score is very memorable. Yeah. Um, it sounded very John Bryan-esque, and then I realized it wasn't actually John Brian and it was Carter Burwell. So, oops. Oh. Yeah. I just assumed it was John Brian, but it was not. Have you ever thought about doing a full video on this? Are you, I mean I suppose you're still got

enough to keep to get through I just like yeah there's I gotta I gotta figure you know I got to prioritize which projects I'm working on and not just there's tons I could make videos on

like this but that is one of the special things about Charlie Kaufman though is that every one of these films feels like you could just write papers on them you can tear them apart and really analyze all the detail

in there. They are essay worthy for sure. Yeah, yeah. I liked the sound design choices when we were inside the perspective of people inside Malcovic. Like the really loud eating and gulps of coffee and all the other audio was kind of like relegated to the background with like tiny bits of white noise. It was really cool. Yeah, and the perspective too where you can see the hands like a plinket reveal or something. I have one tiny little nitpicky criticism about the presentation of the film and it's within that scene where we first get into Malcovich's head is the mirror shot.

Yeah. Because you can tell it's at an angle whereas if perhaps if they had a higher budget they could have built a set where the mirror was just pointing to a mirrored version of the same set behind it and had Malcovich just walk in sort of thing. So that would have been a fix. but again it's so minor that it doesn't really matter yeah yeah but other movies have done that well

yeah less money that was much later I think and to the void but yeah yeah this is nitpicking yeah yeah I'm just mentioning it because I would mention it in any other movie I guess I love the line like there's so many great comedic moments like I don't understand how I could go on living my life the way I lived it before and Maxine just gestures towards the window, the open window, like, fucking kill yourself.

So good. Her character is just so awful, but... I mean, all the characters are kind of fucking awful in this movie. The main character is just a piece of shit. Everybody's an asshole. He's very unlikable. They're monsters. They're monsters.

The line where they're at the house of Lester, and he's saying, okay, enter the fifth door on my left. And then she gets confused and goes through the wrong room. There's so many other films, so many other television shows. It's a common trope of like, oh, I'm looking for the bathroom, but I accidentally enter another room sort of thing. Like, that's a very common thing. But the way that it's set up in terms of just that simple line, enter the fifth door on my left. He's already such a quirky, weird character that it's like, you'd just imagine that's something that he would say.

And you wouldn't correct him because it's just like, okay, well, this guy, whatever, he's fucking weird. But that alone, those directions, it's like, what does that mean at the same time? And so you can totally understand why someone would get so confused. It's not just like, oh, yeah, I show up and there's too many doors sort of thing. Like it happens in so many other stories. Yeah. There's like a logical reason in the writing for why that would happen. There's just so much in terms of like, I already explained Maxine's motivation and how that plays into her.

and how you can tell basically from the moment she's entered into the story. But I love as soon as Maxine meets Lottie, you see this grin on her face. And immediately you can tell, like, she's thinking, like, I can use this. And everything just adds so much into these characters' motivations. And especially when she's like, let her go, Craig. I mean, him. And she sees that as a way.

She's like, okay, I'm going to not misgender you. and I'm going to see you for your true self. And I will be able to manipulate you more because of that. And I'll also be able to manipulate Craig more because of that. Every bit of conversation, like when they smoke weed and she starts saying, like, she literally starts talking about the virtue of people going after what they want. So they don't regret their lives. And that not only plays into her as a character,

but that is a very clear way where she is seeing how she can manipulate someone. else. And she's literally just suggesting, making enhanced suggestibility for Lottie's character, basically telling her what to do, but pretending as though she's just being philosophical. It's very slimy. I love when Malkovich finds out that all of this is going on. And he says, I will see you in court. And from that moment, all I'm thinking is like, if that happened, that would be so funny. Just imagining what... A courtroom would be like, of like, they got in my head and they were selling tickets to my brain. Just how goofy that would be.

Everything's so wacky. And then, oh, yeah. The cameos. The cameos were so good. Yeah. Yeah, I know just that. David Fincher is showing up randomly. That was hilarious.

That was great. Yeah. The half second of Brad Pitt. Yeah. Charlie Sheen. That entire sequence where they do that, I think it was a, American Art Institute parody. It's just so well done from like a parody level.

Like it seems really genuine. Like it could be a real thing. And on the criterion Blu-ray and the special features, they basically included that full sequence without cutting back to the characters. Like you could just watch it as if it were a video sort of thing. Oh, that's cool. Oh, cool. And I don't know maybe this was just easier to pick up on watching this way.

Perhaps it cut to another character in the film and that's why I didn't notice it. But when they talk about his, Malcovich's breakout puppeteering performance at the Grammys, I think, or the Emmys, whichever one it was, they talk about his performance. And they say that his act was he was manipulating a marionette that was also manipulating a smaller marionette. So basically, you see the shot of Malcovich holding a puppet,

and then the puppet pulls another puppet out of a bonnet. out of a box. And I wish that they had made that more clear in the film because I think they cut away from that moment. Because watching that in the featurette, all I'm thinking is like, that's exactly what is happening in the story too, because John Cusack's character is puppeteering Malcovic, who is puppeteering a puppet. So there already is that extra layer.

And so if you think about it, it's like a third layer rather than just a second layer. And it's just, it's so crazy. It's like the, the fucking, uh, the warehouse in Synecdochee, New York, where they build New York inside of New York. Yeah. There's just so many layers and it just loops on forever. Yeah, I guess just one last thing. There was a, uh, there was a special feature on the criteria in Blu-ray.

Uh, that was a commentary track from Michelle Gondry. And basically, he did a commentary track on the whole movie. I don't know if it was specifically. for criterion or what it was for, but it was literally just Michelle Gondry, who is the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And he's a friend of Spike Jones, but also kind of like a competitor.

And what's really weird about it is, before you even play it, they call it a selected scene commentary. So they cut down the commentary. They cut out like a good half an hour of it, so it's still like an hour long. And they say it's for reasons of accuracy, audience engagement and legal liability,

which that last part makes me think like, who did he threaten? Who did Michelle Gondry? Like, what did he say? It's very interesting, yeah. I listened to it. He was just shit-talking people the whole time. He was saying really weird shit. Like when Catherine Keener was under the covers, he called up Spike Jones and put him on speakerphone saying, like, I've run out of things to talk about.

And he starts asking Spike Joan. He's like, Was Kestrin Kina wearing panties in this scene? It seemed like kind of a creep. It was really weird. That's really weird. Yeah. All right, I've rambled on for quite a bit about this. I'm glad you like it.

I love it. Glad there's passion for it. I wish I had the same passion. I still really like it. I probably won't watch it again for another few years. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, newfound appreciation for it, for sure. Always loved it, but now I love it.

to uncover in his movies. Every time watching one, it's like watching a new movie. So, yeah, there's a lot going on. I really like it. Do you want to give ratings? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

Yeah, I'm with you. I was torn between an 8 or 9. I'm going to settle on an 8 for now, but I could see it being bumped up on an eventual rewatch. And I'm giving this one a 10 out of 10. Bazinger. Whoa. We got them.

Love it. It was that mirror shot. I had to take off two points for that. Unwatchable. Unwatchable. Make it again. We need a remake. Yeah, where they just fixed that and they put a...

Who would it do, who would it be now? Does anyone have that same stature? Yeah, you can't do Tom Cruise again, because he's in Scientology meetings all day. You gotta do someone with like a good life. Being... Like the rock. You could do the... being Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Yeah.

Yeah. Kevin Hart is Dwayne Johnson. All right. Does one of you want to introduce the next film? Alex, you want to? Spoilers. We can try. Okay.

Spoilers for adaptation then. This one came out 2002, so three years after being John Malkovich. And what makes it interesting is kind of the angle it takes because it's partially an adaptation of the Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. But at the same time, it's also kind of biographical, based on Charlie Kaufman's struggles in adapting this notorious book, which is known for its kind of rambling structure that just wouldn't work as a film plot. So he really cleverly spun it in a way to incorporate the themes of the book, but also add the original metaphysical spin that he's known for.

So Nicholas Cage plays Kaufman himself totally neurotic. Like he can't stand the film industry every time his twin brother, who's also played by Nicholas Cage, brings up any industry term. He shoots it down and says, don't bring that up in my house and things like that. And he's super awkward, anxious, super low self-esteem, can't interact with women. But he goes on this journey of kind of self-discovery, yeah, with a bunch of really high. profile actors. I guess this was the one I was kind of more referencing in terms of these like just powerhouse of actors. Nicholas Cage, Tilda Swinton, Merrill Street, Chris Cooper. Like the main cast is very good for the movie.

Chris Cooper won't know. And yeah, he did. He did deservedly so. Because kind of like in being John Malkovich, there are some wacky characters and some over-the-top stuff, but it is grounded in this universe. and I really love the kind of message being this idea that it's almost like a statement where he's taking this story that's ridiculously hard to adapt, but he made his mission to adapt it in a way that would have these extra layers in his kind of Kaufmanesque way. Even though at first I was, I never really like that idea of self-inserting yourself.

Like it is kind of a stereotypical. writery thing to do where you like the main character as yourself. Yeah, exactly. That was the moment where I was like, I'm so glad he addressed that. Yeah, because it really fits into the character. He's so, so aware of every single aspect of his life.

He's so ultra-critical of himself. I thought that part really works, especially with the way he incorporated Hollywood tropes like narration and the kind of the third act of the movie where there's the showdown because they constantly bring up like serial killer movies and stuff like that.

Yeah, that great scene where he kind of goes to the scream writer who does the lectures who has a go at him and he's kind of a moment of change for the character. He's like,

life doesn't have a third act just keeps going. He's like, you got to write some shit. And so the end of the movie's just like, they introduced this whole like porno thing that never came up before. Drugs and guns

and charges. And drugs and guns. And it's like, becomes like, yeah, this crazy movie with guns and violence. But it's what people want at the end. Yeah, it's foreshadowed really well. Just the whole meta side of it is such a clever way. I can't believe.

What makes it work is that they had the resources to pull it off and like a really good cast. Like that's what kind of elevates the material. Like people take it seriously because of that. They're all playing real people too. Like Susan Orlean, John LaRoche are real people. And so there was like an extra level to their performances that was impressive. I guess that's why Chris Cooper got an Oscar because maybe he played John LaRoche really well. I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with how the real people act. Yeah, I'm not sure either. When I first saw the movie, I thought Donald Kaufman was a real person because it says written by Donald Kaufman and Charlie Kaufman. And like, upon like looking up on the internet afterward, I was like, wait, where is this Donald Kaufman? It's a fake person. Yeah, exactly. But it was like interesting how he explored like himself and almost like what he wants to be. It's like different sides of himself as a writer.

Yeah. Like because that Donald Kaufman is like he's charismatic and he's a ladies man. He's a good writer too. Like he doesn't try too hard to write something epic or bizarre world Kaufman. Yeah. He just writes like studio crap that people love and he makes millions of dollars. Yeah, he's super successful. And Charlie Kaufman's like, why don't I do that?

Why am I stuck like fucking trying to adapt this thing and driving myself crazy? Writing an idea that's not even going to work. Yeah. And I mean like in a way it's like kind of an admission that no matter how. No matter how a typical and how much you want to not follow the rules, there is some sort of structure that is necessary if you want to make your film. Right. And have it be viewed by people and have it be successful. And it's a way of kind of admitting that there needs to be a balance between these ideas,

which is where the writing credit kind of comes from in kind of this meta way. And I love how a person that doesn't exist got nominated for an Oscar. I wish you won. Yeah, what would they do? He would just walk up on stage. I guess. Charlie Kaufman, Nicholas Cage. Maybe he had a double.

Or maybe he just hold up a mirror. Yeah, that would be funny. Yeah, Nicholas Cage gives two wonderful performances. And they're different too. Yeah, yeah, because it is a very honest depiction of himself with, like, he really doesn't hold back any punches, like, most scenes and with him, like, just jerking off and, like, fantasizing and just pissing about and being distracted. And it seems like a lot of himself was injected in an honest way that doesn't, you know, like in, like in the room where it's all clearly, there's all written to be pure fantasy.

There's a lot of realism to the characters and a lot of the humor comes from that. Like I thought the humor was very solid in the movie because it does feel very realistic and relatable. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to write about yourself, you can't just have, you can't just turn yourself into this like idealist sort of super character. So it really works that his character is self-loathing and just constantly put. He's shutting himself down. Yeah. He fucking hates himself, basically. Yeah, it works really well.

I love the title. Yeah. Is it supposed to have a period? Yes. Sometimes I see it with a period. Sometimes I don't. Yeah, so that's why I was confused. It's like a statement.

Yeah. Adaptation, like an adaptation of a book, but also the thematic elements of adaptation as in, you know, adapting and overcoming. And then, you know, we see the shots of like evolution and history. of life and you know and the idea of adapting to your environment can also be placed in the the literal plot of him adapting this book into a film and how he eventually had to compromise and realize that he needed these other elements in the film in order to make it work and changing himself in order for things to actually succeed so there's a lot to read into there's the parallel with being John Malkovich in the way John Malkovich himself was kind of torn on the idea.

For adaptation, the author of the book, Susan Orlean, was torn on the idea. Of course. Yeah, because it doesn't make her look that great. But again, props to her for allowing it to be made. And, you know, it's another example of just all these pieces coming together in the right way and people trusting the kind of artistic integrity behind it. and everyone believing in the project enough to make it come together and work. Logically, the movie shouldn't exist.

So it's like two in a row for Kaufman, where he's just had this like crazy idea that like when he was turning in the script for adaptation, he thought that he would literally kill his career. Yeah, that's right, because he didn't tell anyone. He was supposed to make an actual adaptation of the Orchid Thief. And then eventually, just like in the film, because the film is about writing the film that it is, it's he's like okay well I have to turn into something else I'm going to do this thing I'm going to make it all me I'm going to literally all me

I'm going to turn into something creative and then he just didn't tell the people funding the movie until he handed in the draft because he knew that they would not go with it and so when Susan Orlean was handed this script because she had to approve it in order for the movie to actually happen supposedly they didn't pressure her in any way

because the people pitching this to her were like yeah we don't really I mean this isn't going to work like we won't blame you if you just say no and she said like she thought about it and she said that because she wasn't pressured into it even though she was really skeptical about it and from first instinct was just like no I'm not doing this because she wasn't pressured about it she said that she felt like kind of emboldened and was like yeah you know what this is my choice let's see how this works and then the movie got made

holy crap it's insane it was good shouldn't exist I love I mean, this is like a no-brainer, but I love how meta the film is. Because it's not just a movie that's about writing. It's a movie about writing the movie that you're watching. And it's so... Yes. When it starts getting into the point where he's writing the actual film you're watching. Yeah, he's writing scenes we're watching play out.

Recording. It's very funny. What he's saying, what he's saying repeated. It's so energetic and it's so much fun. Just to think about. But they don't do it too much. It doesn't get annoying. Oh, yeah.

It's not a whole movie. Yeah. It's clearly there's other things going on. Although there are kind of more subtle instances of that same thing happening. Because near the beginning of the film, one of the lines when he's starting to write, even though he's not talking about the film that he's currently right or the version of the script that is in the film, he's one of the lines is, okay, so I need to establish the themes. And that's as the themes are being established in the film.

So it's kind of also meta in that sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. It works on an emotional level for the character, though, at the same time. Because he's so frustrated and he is in this block. So seeing him come to the revelation that he suddenly has this idea. And then it all twigs and all the cogs fit together. And you're like, oh, you're just described in the beginning of the movie.

Yeah, yeah, that's when it becomes like something really great to me. And from there, it just goes deeper. you kind of get a view of how writers are treated in Hollywood as well in this like how they're kind of thrown to the wayside they show Charlie Kaufman on this set of being John Malcolm oh yeah and I don't know what really happened but from how it looks they just kind of treated him like shit like they just think of a who are you ignoring him yeah yeah and you know the meetings with Tilda Swinton it's just kind of dismissive like oh yeah do you have the draft yet and he's like this nervous wreck they're clearly like not on the same level at all yeah she's all dressed up

prim proper he's fucking like you could tell he hasn't slept in three days and he's wearing the same shirt yeah it's just awful and i feel bad for writers so i'm glad he threw that in there too there's a level of the other movie that has that too yeah criticism of the industry criticizing harlewood uh-huh criticism of the industry how actors are treated writers are treated yeah as far as the meta angle goes i really liked the way they they would talk about the top level kind of way you structure stories. You kind of learn a fair amount. Like if you didn't know much about the way

filmmaking and the script structure and all of that works, they explain a fair amount and you get a good idea of where one would have to be to start to formulate a story and put it together in the essential tenets that make up something like this. It's very clever.

It actually, it's one of the movies that makes me want to write, like start writing. Yeah, it's such a fun. I find that. I find that it's very like inspiring. creatively fulfilling yeah get a tape recorder and start rambling to yourself yeah that i don't do first of all no one has a tape recorder anymore you're gonna record on your phone yeah your phone a voice memo i i love the the pitch of donald koffman's script i love i love just how like cliched and just like you know it's the type of thing that could sell you know realistically especially

in early 2000s where he's just like yeah it's like a serial killer and it turns out that it's actually him the whole time it's a split personality

and what's really funny about this is like they directly mention the contradiction that would arise from if there are all these characters and there's like a chase scene then you know where

both of the vehicles coming from so how can he be in two places at once and he's just like yeah well I don't know it's subversive like just kind of explaining it And then the very next year another film came out where I guess I won't say the title because it's a spoiler for the movie, but a horror film by a French director and that enough should give it away that did that exact same thing. And I like the movie, but like holy crap, that gigantic plot hole just like kind of ruins the movie. So much that Roger Ebert even mentioned it in his review, he said there's a plot hole so big you can.

drive a truck through it. So. Yes, one of those projects that I'm shocked that it even comes together the way it does. Shouldn't exist. It's so ambitious and there's so many things about it that really

shouldn't work, things that should bother me, but it really doesn't. Even down to like the special effects in the movie are just flawless. Like the twin special effects are fantastic. Yeah. Like the fake teeth thing

with the front teeth on the yeah yeah Chris Cooper's character and his missing teeth and the alligators and all that is all very kind of like being John Markovich it's all very believable yeah that's happened in movies before

where it's looked like really fake the missing teeth thing it's like oh you just painted it black yeah and those side characters are actually we haven't really talked about them much but I really like Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper's dynamic especially exploring this idea of this person

who's not really satisfied by anything, and she finds a way to start becoming interested in things. And I really like that angle. Their storyline gets a lot more interesting for me once that element is explored. That doesn't really happen right away. But once we get that aspect of her character, it does become much more watchable.

For the first part of their characters, I'm not as interested. I find the Nick Cage storyline to be, much more interesting overall anyway but i enjoyed uh chris cooper's character's kind of tragic backstory he just reverses out without thinking and that's almost kind of a cliche too which is funny because it's like you almost can't criticize the movie for any cliches that exist in it because it's like oh well that's just a part of what it's saying isn't it yeah also is that part true about his life i have no idea it wouldn't even matter really yeah clearly the stuff at the

the end is fictional. But I like, they don't, they don't spell it out either that the whole end of the movie. The joke of it is that the third act is just kind of some shitty threw together. Yeah. And just so the movie can end. Just to feel satisfying, yeah. Yeah. But if you aren't like thinking about that or the third act of the film, you're just

watching it as an experience as the characters, it works just fine, too. And that's like what's great about his writing. Like the characters. their journeys make sense, even with the absurdism of the story taking place in every instance. The denouement. Little emotional beats even, like, when the brother, Nicholas Cage's twin Donald does get killed in the car crash. And that scene where Nicholas Cage calls up his mum to tell him. I just thought the execution of that was really solid, where he doesn't sit there kind of weeping and explaining.

everything. It's just edited in a really brisk way that delivers the impact of the emotion without just going too far into it. You just totally understand where he's coming from. I like how the cliched idea of Donald Kaufman's script, and I'm just kind of noticing this right now, it kind of fits thematically into the twin brothers in the sense that they are the same person, whereas like Donald Kaufman's script is literally, there's multiple characters that are the same person, and yet they're both extensions of Charlie Kaufman as a character. So that fits nicely. Yeah.

I just love this movie. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, it is. It's fun in a different ways. It's smart. It's very original. There's nothing else like it. And it's Nicholas Cage is in it, and he's fucking great.

Double Cage. Just to get people to watch something. Yeah. The original Gemini Man. It's not as cool as Gemini Man. They don't fight. They just talk on a row. Yeah, there's not like a motorbike.

Punch out. He just sits in a room and writes on a computer. Jokes off a lot, yeah. Chirks off. Yeah, that whole thing. That's funny too. How, just how much of a loser he is. He just sits inside all day, jerks off, writes. Yeah. You just can't get it together. This is the type of script that could even work if the Orchid Thief wasn't even a real book. And if this was like the goal that Charlie Kaufman had from the beginning was to tell a about writing, then it still could have worked.

But the fact that it is so meta, and it literally is an adaptation of the Orchid Thief in this way, and it is about him writing the script that he's actually sent for the movie, that makes it just so much better. Like, it still would work even if it wasn't that meta, but it's just even better. Yeah, I just love how it proves that you can basically tell an interesting. story out of anything.

You can make anything interesting if you put the work in, and that's basically what the movie proves, even with how notoriously difficult it would have been to translate a story like that. It can be done, just with a bit of that originality and creativity. I wonder why he took the project in the first place. Who? Charlie Ka-I-I-W-I-W-E-D-E. He says, like, he wants to grow as a writer, like the character says it.

So yeah, I wonder if it was something like that. Nobody's ever made a movie about flowers. They might have offered him a lot of money. They don't want to mention that part. Maybe. Speaking of money, though, both of these films were successful. Going back to your point, Alex, which is great. Like, these original smart films, and they were both very successful.

They both made millions of dollars. I don't know if the same thing would happen today if you had the same. Well, Charlie Kaufman still makes films, and they're not nearly as, like, renowned. as I feel they used to be. They were successful enough. They don't get the same buzz. Uh-huh. They were successful. Like, people still really like them.

Yeah. They just have like this indie, they're in the indie circuit, and then they go in festivals, and then that's it. Anomalisa should have been seen by way more people. Yeah. And same with like Synecichy. It's also harder with animation. Yeah, it might be that too.

Telling adult stories. Mm-hmm. Yeah, wasn't that one funded, like crowdfunded or something? It was partially crowdfunded, and then Dino Stamtopoulos showed up and was like, okay, I'll just let you do whatever you want. It was just gave them money and just didn't influence anything, which is like the perfect producer. Charlie Kaufman strikes me as a very love sick person because I realized while watching

this film that every single one of his movies essentially has a character longing for like an important sort of like intimacy with another character. So it makes me kind of sad. like tortured. I feel bad for the guy. Because it's like it's from what I can tell. It's like clearly a part of him, right? Yeah, his works just personal.

It's hard to know like exactly where the characters end and he starts. Yeah, exactly. Like there's so much of him in these movies. These movies, like you can tell him. He is literally in it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It gets back.

I don't know if like, yeah, it's Charlie Kaufman in the movie, but I don't see him as a person as that character. It's clearly a character. And it's just like maybe parts of him thrown in there, but it's a character. He doesn't act the same way Nick Kjacks, but it's exaggerated. I'm sure he's changed as a person since the release of adaptation to when you talk to him as well. I'm sure he's not the same person. Yeah, he might have, I don't know, gotten over-jurking off. Maybe he doesn't jerk off anymore.

Yeah, I saw it more as like an exaggeration to make the story kind of more dramatic and work on that level. Yeah, exactly. It had something to the story that makes so much more interesting. The fact that I'm actually Googling if Donald Kaufman is real, if the Orchid Thief is real. And some things are, some things aren't. That's the funny part. It is such a unique film.

I can't think of anything else really like it. Yeah. I guess that's why we're so compelled by Kaufman because it is just such a rarity to find originality quite like this. Yeah. My favorite screenwriter, I don't know if either. you agree but it's pretty definitely up there he's a very good writer yeah he

doesn't make films a lot like he releases films not very often I mean he doesn't factory produce them puts a lot of for sure exactly he puts a lot of passion in every idea and takes his time yeah and it shows especially chaos walking that one's gonna be mhm

oh is this weird Netflix one no the Netflix one is I'm thinking of ending things chaos walking is the Doug Lyman, however he pronounce his name. The Edge of Tomorrow one that's been finished for like two years, but they keep postponing it because it's apparently so bad that the studio doesn't know what to do with it. And there's like eight different writers on the project. So clearly Charlie Kaufman's, I mean, it's an adaptation of something else anyway, I'm pretty sure. It's just a writer for hire.

This is like fresh after Anomalisa right after like all those articles came out where he was like, yeah, I made Anomalisa hoping that it would help get other projects funded, that it would be like a massive. And then that didn't happen and then what is the first thing he does he takes this like studio project or it's just like okay well I'll make this shitty thing for now before I make something real again So I'm excited for that because it looks bad Yeah, that's the good part he got paid and now he can make something good Sometimes you got to just bite the bullet and you know don't Don't spend too much time on it just give them what they want just like But again no that's like a Donald Kaufman movie maybe he's just branching out and trying to make like a

a big studio movie like that and maybe it didn't work out but it's nice that he's trying new things. Yeah, I'm excited for the Netflix one. That should be coming out this year although there's no specific date for it. So that other movie he was brought on as a writer, it was already

like a script that someone else had written or he might have written the first draft of it. I don't know specifics, but there's like eight other writers on it. The scripts change a lot. They get rewritten a lot. It sucks. They just took his script away from him. I'm not expecting to experience a Charlie Kaufman movie watching Chaos Walking.

Yeah. I'm expecting a dumpster fire. Which is why I'm excited. It might be good. I don't think so. I don't think so. It would have come out already if they knew how to release it. It's literally been finished for like two years.

And they're just like, what the fuck do we do with this? And have you read the premise? Oh, yeah. Read it again. I don't know what's about. A dystopium. world where there are no women and all living creatures can hear each other's thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called noise. Yeah. It sounds so funny. It's going to be hilarious. Sounds like

Tenet. It's calling it right now. So this year it's coming out? No, it was supposed to come out. So it already had gotten postponed once to January 2020 and then before any like COVID or anything, They decided, nah, we're pushing it forward another year, and it was postponed to January 2021. So we don't know. It's probably just going to get dumped on digital, which, if they're going to do that anyway, I would suggest doing that now. But I just, I don't, I think they've just forgotten about it. The studios just doesn't, they don't know what to do with it. They're like, nobody's going to enjoy this is the impression I'm getting.

But it'll be fun, hopefully. Sounds tough. Tom Holland's in it? Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. He must be so young if they filmed it like years ago. He's going to look like a little baby. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be interesting.

Yeah, I really enjoyed adaptation. There's like little bits of details here and there that I picked up on this time. Like him saying like before he goes into the meeting pretending to be his brother, he's like, don't laugh how you laugh and then immediate cut to him laughing, which I've found kind of funny. But it wasn't like so overt. It wasn't so obvious that it was like the punchline, but it was just a nice little detail. Yeah, they always reel it back. They don't go over the top with the ideas.

It's sort of subtle. Spike Jones makes both of these really great too. I love that Charlie Kaufman is able to work with great directors. Now he's directing his own things, which is just even better. But it was really crucial for his ideas to work to actually collaborate with talented people that could bring his vision to life. So both Spike Jones and Michelle Gondry, if you had directors that were not as competent,

these ideas would never work that well. Like, they wouldn't be the same films at all. So much of it is the directing, too, even though I'm like obviously, you know, gushing over Charlie Kaufman, you've got to give credit to Spike Jones for both of these films. Yeah.

There seemed to be a real knack for the visual storytelling. I think it's part of why I like the pacing and the flow of these movies so much. much is every single thing that's described whenever someone starts going into like a monologue that's talking about something that the visuals will change to kind of show it in in certain ways there are all sequences and adaptation where they show like almost like bee roll in intense detail of what they're talking about like the bees flying around that was a good sequence of the plants yeah there's loads of really visual stimulating sequences yeah yeah there's a bunch of stuff like that

Probably like miniature puppets or something. I don't know how they did that. It was a really cool shot. It looked really convincing and real. But like just the way the camera was following the B, it's like, okay, that can't. That's not real. Yeah, how do you do that?

I want to know what they did. That's a sign of a visual effect shot that works. Yeah. You don't know how they did it. Yeah, a really great movie. Love it. Yeah, really great. It's probably my favorite Kaufman movie.

Oh. This and Eternal Sunshine are my two favorites. Yeah, I wouldn't mind talking about Eternal Sunshine at some point because that's... Yeah, one day that would be great. Amazing, I love it. Yeah, I want to go deep into Anomalisa at some point. Yeah, we could do that. Just all of his movies.

Just all of them, yeah. We could just do all of his movies. Chaos Walking. Yeah, even Chaos Walking. We'll talk about that one day. When it is released, five years from now. Yeah. Or whatever.

Whenever, it'll become the new The Day the Clown cried. Yeah. It'll be released in like 50 years. ratings? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, what do we give it? 10 out 10 for me. Yeah.

It's almost so clever that it's annoying. There's sometimes films come around like that where I'm just so flawed by how they come together that I'm like almost annoyed by how like flawless they are. And that's one of these movies for me. I give it five star. I don't connect with it as much as a number of Charlie Kaufman's films. I love it and appreciate it. obviously super unique original and meta lots to pick up on I'm gonna give it a nine

I'm gonna be fair okay and not just give it a 10 because it's Charlie Kaufman I'm gonna give it a nine I like the writing angle to it a lot I feel like I relate to that it's a crazy job being like a Hollywood writer like I can't yeah because you just like write all day like you don't have to go anywhere it's probably very lonely like just you sit all day and You can just hand in drafts like whenever you want. But yeah, it's a strange job. And then he makes tons of money upon like delivery. So he doesn't have to worry about anything.

All right, question time? Yeah, for so. Okay, let's do some questions from the Sardonicast community. If you want to leave your own questions for future episodes, head over to the Sardonicast subreddit where there will be a suggestion thread. Let's start with this one then from DHMO Protection Agency. Adam has mentioned in his Blu-ray collection live stream that Human Centipede won't be recommended on the podcast because Ralph and or Alex wouldn't want to watch and discuss it. Is that true?

You guys have said before that you don't want to watch through them. I've pretty sure I've... Maybe it was Ralph. I don't remember, but I've mentioned this on the podcast before, and the impression I got was that you, at least one of you, maybe both of you, were... Are you morally against them, Ralph? Or what? No, I'm not morally against them. I just think they're stupid.

Oh, it's not like a thing where my stomach can't handle it. Like, yeah. No, they are stupid. It's like a bunch of, it's a bunch of dumb props. Yeah. Yeah. I just find the idea of it like so silly. Like the guy who, which is any director really tries to just shock the audience with a bunch of gourd.

Shit. It's just literally shit. Yeah, that's really shit and like, yeah. Babies being squashed and stuff like that. It's like, I'm not interested in any of that crap. Not because it's disturbing, because it's just dumb. It's no subtle to. I think the second movie was pretty self-aware.

There's like tree revenge, which is like a movie of like a bunch of Christmas trees stopping on babies. But that's like, that's funny. That's different. Yeah. Never heard of it. The Christmas trees are like getting all tied up. You know how they're treated? Like, you know, they get tied up in the van and thrown in the back.

And then like in the second half of the movie, they get revenge on the humans. So they like terrorize the town. And one of the trees like stomps on a kid. but that's like really goofy. Did you just spoil Trevenge? It's a short moment. It's like five minutes.

Yeah, I don't care. Hopefully it gets people to watch it. Yeah, it's a good ass movie. I don't know. I might not recommend it the Human Centipede trilogy anyway. We'll see. We'll see.

Yeah, we'll see. I'm not against it like seriously. I was probably just joking when I said it. Yeah. But the second half of the question was what are the rules you guys have for recommendations? Does it have to be a physical or digital release? Our Netflix exclusives are allowed?

Are TV shows or web series allowed? Any other films slash shows? Y'all have agreed to not recommend. Sorry for the lengthy question, you sexy sardines. I think anything within a reasonable amount of time can be suggested. Like a season of TV, I think, is reasonable for someone to watch. It's like 10 hours. Yeah.

I'm thinking of recommending a season one day. Yeah, like you recommended Xavier, Renegate Angel. That was also a comedy, so you didn't have to watch, like, all of them in order. Yeah. I'm not against, like, trilogies. Yeah, 10-minute-long episodes. Yeah, I would be against, like, watching a whole anime, like a 40-episode-long anime. Yeah, we're not going to do all of Death Note.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that. That's probably where I draw the line. Yeah. Especially anime. Especially anime. Especially anime. I hate animation. I knew one person would take it that way when I said, like, I don't watch animation because it's for kids.

And then someone got upset about it. I'm like, what? I was fucking joking. I love animation. God damn it. All right. Yeah, there are no rules, really. Let's do this one then from GGG-375.

If you guys could time travel to any point in history, where would you go? Oh, my God. Easy for me. I'd go to... Maybe the Cretaceous period. Have a look around there. It's my dream to see a dinosaur in action. Yeah.

For good, though? Yeah. No, because then I could leave these weird relics that would be found. You could leave your phone. Yeah. You could leave a copy of the Madagascar trilogy Blu-ray. And it would be heralded as kind of like the book of Eli. Yeah.

But it's the fucking Madagascar films. We wouldn't invent the technology to read. it until 2005 or something. Just a couple years before it comes out. Well, it wouldn't come out because it would already get a thing. Yeah, you would have to include like a TVD player, electricity, generator. Just an iPad loaded TV.

A solar powered iPad. That's right. I would go to when Bitcoin started becoming a thing and become a billionaire. Oh, the lame answer. What? Well, no, because like, okay, that's like the Back to the Future two answer with the almanac, whatever. In my thought process, I would want to time travel to points in time where I had like an understanding of things that were going on.

And I wouldn't be like, okay, so future, we don't know what's happening in the future. and then certain amount of period before just now, like what period am I going to go back to where I'm not going to be persecuted for being a homo, right? So if we can just keep it within things that I've already experienced, then, I mean, I feel like I could exploit that the best. Bitcoin is the most obvious thing. You can mine it without even really spending a lot of money into it.

There are people that, you know, like one Bitcoin, wound up being worth quite a lot, like thousands of dollars, right? Yeah. So if you had a computer that was mining Bitcoin and just saved it and sold it all right before the big crash, then you could just be set for life. And so that's the most realistic, practical sort of answer that I could give. Anything else would just be a crapshoot, and I wouldn't really know what I'd be getting myself into.

Yeah, you're thinking quite practically. I guess I just imagine myself as like a, a fool. fly on the wall because that's my dream scenario being a little fly flying around history yeah yeah dinosaur times might be dangerous you might just die oh no doubt be dangerous yeah if i had to actually physically go back it would not be it would not end well well what's the i mean is that not implied by a time machine but you know what how about this then like i'm on my deathbed and i can just be sent back and my my dying breath i see a dinosaur before it steps on me or something that's all right I'll take it

Cool Yeah Yeah Okay I don't know medieval times I think I like

Like 10th century Yeah Like I wouldn't live in any time Prior to now Just because I think Like I would miss Netflix And TV That would be horrible

Yeah You'd miss having like plumbing Yeah plumbing Plumbing Yeah computer Video games so I wouldn't go back to any time maybe the future

if you go too far it would be like you could go into like some apocalypse yeah that's what I want to know accidentally if we were to time travel into the future what year would we say is a safe bet how far before

I like just stumble into like it's just rubble yeah it's just I'm just like oh shit this is where my apartment was but now it's just rubble like when are we going extinct. When is the world truly gone to shit? We don't know what's in the future. I would go

like right on the edge of that. We thought we'd have like a lot of cool shit right now. We thought we'd like be this advanced society and in ways we kind of are, but in other ways we're really not. So I don't know what year I would even go to if I went into the future. It seems like kind of a disadvantage to go into the future. Unless you're just unless you pull like a futurerama and you're just earning interest in your bank. account. Yeah, just to see what it's like, just for fun. Maybe you can make money in the future as like a tourist attraction. I would say a safe bet would be like 50 years because you'd have, like, you'd be amazed by all the fucking cool technology. Virtual reality would be the coolest thing ever. It would

just be like real life. Yeah, video games are going to be great in just five years. Yeah, dude. But think about that, though, that's the same equivalent as somewhere from the 70s jumping to now. Mm-hmm. That probably would be pretty weird. Yeah. Like, society's pretty different. The best thing to do with a virtual reality headset is put it on a boomer. It's like they're on drugs.

Yeah. They don't know what's going on. I tried VR for the first time the other day. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You like it? Would you play? Yeah.

I played a bit of Half-Life Alex. Nice. I've never experienced VR before because I've just never had access or been convinced enough to because honestly the clips on YouTube and the videos of it don't do it justice. It is mental. Play some beat saber. Yeah. So much fun.

I'm thinking of actually investing in one for myself. I just don't know which one to pick. It's the thing. The Vive Pro I have and I have the wireless attachment. I enjoy it a lot. The index is supposed to be really good or like really comparable. You might want to choose depending on which controllers he'd like better. However, the index is back ordered by quite a lot.

Oh, really? Yeah. So you'd be waiting like six months or some shit. Okay. I would go with the Vive. That's what I have. It's really, some of them don't have, like, because the Vive has two sensors that you place in the room so you can walk around. And a lot of these VAR sets don't.

Yeah. A lot of them just have, like, the headset. And those kind of like, I guess they're fine, but it's not nearly as good. Yeah, the lighthouse base stations are compatible and also the controllers. Like, they're interchangeable between, like, Vive and the index. So if you wanted to, like, pick different parts from each, even though it wouldn't be as cost effective to do it like that, but it is still possible. So I've used the index controllers with my Vive system.

Oh, right. The VE controllers, I've had issues with them. Oh, yeah? They, like, get stuck, the pad part. Oh, really? I haven't had that issue. Yeah. That's what happens when you play Beat Sabre on it and you're tapping it like excessively.

All right, next question. Furry N and Zero says, how do you feel about people who use political or moral biases as ground for criticizing films? For example, Ben Shapiro said Carasite was a good movie in every aspect, but he disagreed with the social politics. Therefore, it won the Oscar because it supports socialism and his only praise for that reason. On the flip side, people criticizing three billboards for having a mixed message, and the morality of how the characters

arcs are handled. Do you think there is any weight to these arguments? Can you think of other examples recently where people have heavily politicized films? I would love to know what Ben Shapiro actually said because now I'm confused. He says that it was a good movie in every element except what it was promoting thematically and politically.

But then he would also say that the Oscars only picked it for its political and theological and thematic reasons and not because it was a good film. So to admit that it was a really great movie, but then say that, like, did he actually say that? I don't know. He said a lot of stupid shit. I don't get a bet to Piero for conversations on art, especially after his embarrassing

statements on things like rap music and John Lennon's Imagine. That's fucking cringe. But yeah, another example of that would be like Armand White, who very clearly just the only reason he would dislike or like a film is whether or not it aligns with his conservative beliefs. That's abundantly clear at this point. Yeah. If what you're saying is, I personally don't connect with the film as much because of these reasons, I think that's totally justified.

But if you're only talking about those ideas and not the actual craft of the filmmaking, I think that you're not really including the full picture of what a film actually is. Yeah, I'm interested by these takes from people that are incredibly political or have extreme moral biases. But that's what's confusing about this statement. Like if he does acknowledge that it's like a good movie, I can't get that angry. But if your only reason for not liking a movie is because it doesn't align up with your politics, that's kind of a shitty reasoning for not liking a movie? Yeah.

Well, not liking. Is it the same as like not liking or just being critical? because I think just being critical of a film, even if you like it, and you're going to say something like that is fine. Yeah. One of the more recent examples I can think of is how politicized Star Wars movies are now. So many different takes on it based on the kind of implied politics that people read into it. And it's like, that to me is like such a low level of interest in where those films go wrong.

You know, like, and it gets to a point where you're just guessing about like intent from all these people that like produce and, you know, and get the casting crew. There's more things going on in a film than like just one message and to just hate a film or lock on to that one message and dismiss the rest of the movie, I think is a bad idea. But to be critical of themes like that in Star Wars, which are pandering or whatever, I think that's a fair thing to say. Yeah, yeah. And depends who it's coming from too. If it's coming from a critic who I expect to be a little more objective and who's getting paid to give their opinion in some kind of like professional magazine or journal entry, then I expect a little more objectivity. If it's coming from a fan, then that's different. You know, it's okay for it to be a little more subjective and maybe more passionate.

Yeah. When you mentioned pandering, I think that's a good word because to me it really depends on how forced and obvious it is. But if that is the case, then my issue isn't with which political ideas or which themes are in the film. It's how it's presented, which goes back into the presentation. So if there are, like, fucking Pixar's onward with the gay character thing, it's like, come on. Like, you didn't really do anything here. It's like, it's so easily edited out for Russia and China. Like, it's just annoying at that point.

It's how it's done. Not that it's there. Obviously, I don't give a shit if a gay character is in a movie. That's not an issue. It's not which political idea. It's not which thematic idea. It's how it's handled. And so, yeah, whether or not it aligns with my personal beliefs is kind of irrelevant.

There's movies that very clearly, like, not even just films, but like songwriters that are very clearly religious. And even though I'm not, I still relate to what they're saying. And I still can appreciate what they're saying on an artistic level. And, you know, sometimes a film isn't necessarily made to just align with what you believe. Sometimes it's about learning about what other people believe and learning about not just the characters in the film, but the character of the person that wrote it or the people that made it. Different perspectives, yeah. So I like getting into other people's heads in that sense.

So yeah, it doesn't really matter where they're coming from politically. It just matters how it's done and whether or not it's going to negatively impact the film by how it's presented. Can one of you guys remind me about this three billboards thing? I remember there being some drama about it, but it's been a while since I've seen that movie. So I can't really remember this mixed message of the morality that is referenced in this question here. That one I'm not too sure about. Oh, I don't know. If I remember correctly, it was about like,

inconsistency in like a character's motivation or something like that or like a perceived inconsistency. I think that was kind of what it was about. But like, again, I don't think that every movie should be necessarily saying like, here's how you should live your life. Because not every movie is trying to say something like that. There are films that follow despicable characters. And sometimes there is no lesson. And, you know, we were talking about adaptation. Charlie Kaufman is playing around with the idea is like, what if I make a film where people

don't grow and don't change and don't learn anything by the end of it. It's like that's a perfectly valid thing to do. Yeah, sometimes depicting evil doesn't mean you're condoning it. Yeah. You know, they're like separate things. Films are like artistic expression too. People express things about themselves they don't like. Like Charlie Kaufman in adaptation obviously has a lot of negative qualities. It doesn't mean he wants those things. It's just it's realistic. It's things people struggle with. I I think people find that interesting more so. And in an industry where you have to make money, it's like let's make movies where things like violence happen and guns and everything. People are bad characters because people want to watch those things out of morbid curiosity or whatever.

That's what people find interesting. I mean, I find those stories interesting too. A Joker was a very successful film, made a billion dollars and he's a villain. So that's something. And that was heavily politicized too. People were trying to project things onto it before it even came out. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of annoying.

It's like you're put into a camp whether or not you enjoy something now. But I think it's just not, you know, you're lacking a bit of nuance if everything's that black and white. Yeah, it's a shame to see that discourse just get more and more toxic. Whatever. Yeah, whatever. All right, one more question. Okay, let's end on this one from Mobile Assuble. Association 8, who says, what are some overrated films that you guys cannot stand or cannot wrap your head around the hype?

Hmm. I'll have to think about this. I don't know if it's like considered great or anything, but I'd never understood the like joy around the hangover like movies. Speaking of Joker. Yeah. It's so stupid. I just never understood that. Yeah, they are really stupid. I enjoyed the first one when I was younger. I wouldn't watch it. ever again though. Yeah, I liked it when I was younger, but I just, a few months ago, I just put it on

late one night and it's like, weirdly like gritty and ugly those films. It's kind of a good pick for Joker, I guess, because he likes the grime and like the sweat and the dirt showing off on people's faces. The second and third one are like, the third one's like a crime movie. The second one's just so dark, kind of disturbing. Yeah. And the third one is too, with like the giraffe being killed as like a gag and stuff. stuff like that. It's all very like dark. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why the first one was successful was because

it did unexpected things and it would just take it another level further, right? And so like if you're trying to make a sequel of that kind of idea, sometimes you might kind of think that you're getting at what made the first one successful without really getting at the heart of it. It just, it just became a parody of itself. Yeah. Or you go too far. It's just not funny anymore. It's a little two over the top. Yeah. They have a hangover again. I remember in that movie, they kept saying, like, it happened again.

It's so stupid. Like that kind of writing. Yeah, yeah, I can't stand it. Let's just make a sequel because it made money. I think the sequels made people turn on those movies or like turn on the first one. If it had just been like one film, I think people would have, it would have had like a stepbrothers kind of legacy. You like stepbrothers?

I don't, but people love that fun. They think it's a great. really passionate about it. Yeah. I bet there. Yeah. When we went to, what is it, Sundance and the cab ride, the taxi driver loved. Oh, yeah.

He loved Step Brothers. And he was animantly defending it. I just kept my mouth shut and watched you guys argue. It was hilarious. It was a friendly argument. Yeah. But like, people love those movies. I have friends back home, too.

Think those are some great comedy. It is really hard to anchor man. Tell someone they're wrong for finding something funny. Right. Yeah, when they connect with it. If you find it funny, like, walking. you say, you know? You can't just say it's stupid because, like, that's the, that's what makes it funny.

That's exactly the point of it. And Steve Correll is playing, like, this really absurd character who does things that makes no sense. It's the Manchild movie to the extreme times a hundred, yeah. I think Kung Pow is hilarious, but I can totally understand anybody that hates it. It's like, okay, yeah, if you're not into the humor, there's not much else there, right? Yeah. So, um, overrated movies.

The first one that comes to mind is creep. I don't know why anybody likes creep I fucking hate it I think it's awful yeah are they considered are they like highly regarded or something there's people that like it

it was successful enough for a sequel true so and like often I get the question why do you hate creep so much it's got a 74 metacritic weirdly yeah awful awful awful awful awful bad cringe movie not scary not funny

super lazy super repetitive, doesn't offer anything. It's just so bad. Yeah. Agreed. I can't think of one. When people ask me overrated,

I never like answer it. I don't like overrated, like the term. It's not my favorite term, aren't you? But this is a question we ask so much. It's one of those common questions.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. I don't know. You could scroll through the top 250 on IMDB and probably see a bunch that it's just like, well, why is that?

Two Story four? Superhero films. Yeah. Like those. Yeah. Avengers. I like those too. Yeah.

I mean, I like the Dark Night. I don't think it's like in the top five movies ever. Yeah. Yeah, overrated. It doesn't mean I hate it. But yeah, it's like some superhero films, I would say. The latest Avengers films. Are those in the top 250?

Because like I like those movies. Probably. Like, come on. Yeah, they are. That's up there with the Godfather. Yeah, the top 250s. just kind of stalked up now.

Like, come on. The seven samurai. Dark Night Rises in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Dark Night Rises. I really like Dark Night Rises, too. That's a good answer. All right.

That about Desert, I think. Yeah. Awesome. Great questions. We have a film recommendation from the one and only, Ralph Seppie, Jr. Yeah, I'm excited. What have you got for us?

So I have a movie from the director of Old Boy. Not that old boy Do the right thing From director Spike Lee So we'll watch that for the next podcast Oh nice awesome It should be fun The Criterion Blu-ray is that out yet

Yes I actually got that recently It's very nice It's like one of the nicest ones I have Yeah it was only on DVD on Criterion for a while Awesome If you don't want to be spoiled Or do the right thing Directed by Spike Lee

I almost said Spike Jones Two Spikes we talk to about. Watch it before the next episode. If you want to support the show, $2 a month, sardonicast.com, sign up for premium. You'll get these episodes early as they're edited. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch.

All right. Nice. That was a good discussion. In honor of the next episode, I'm going to watch Old Boy, the remake. Oh. I'll watch the time. When it came out in theaters. Yeah.

I thought it was okay. Yeah, right? Yeah. I was okay. So my dad I find it offensive My dad hadn't seen the original one So he's like yeah it was pretty good

Yeah All right Thanks for listening everybody Bye bye Malkovich Malcovich Malcovich Malcovich